Category: Podcast

Happy new year to all my friends all over the world!

Wow! 2017 is gone. That year came with huge challenges and also much growth but in all God remains great.

You see, my needs to please everyone around me used to be the driving force for my life until God broke down this tendency greatly in me in 2017.  Each day God keep breaking me away from this person pleasing lifestyle. So I can truly pursue His call for me boldly. And the result was 45 episodes of Like Jesus Podcast and a course on PurposeUniversity.online and many other exploits around the world. I am so grateful.

I remember one specific day I was driving on Westminster ave in Montreal this year. The traffic was heavy, and I  don’t like the road rage that comes with heavy traffics. However, I needed to boldly advance or I would be there for hours. My husband was also encouraging me to move,  he said go, with fear and some boldness I advanced, but mistakenly my eyes caught that of the other driver and guess what the looks on his face sent chills all the way to my heart it felt like a knife cutting some of my nerves. I am sure you may be wondering what kind of a weirdo I am but really, that was one of the events that God used to point my attention to the way my heart had become. I didn’t like to look bad in people’s eyes.

I really thank God for the way He pushed me out of my comfort zone and still is. Because I stepped out I am blessing many all over the globe. I have statistics of people listening to Like Jesus Podcast from all continents of the world. Also our course on PurposeUniversity.online is helping individuals learn to become all that God made them to be.

God has a wonderful plan for your life my dear,  and I pray that in 2018 you will engage that more than ever before.

I pray that God will deliver you from whatever is holding you back this year. You see it’s up to you, God will not come down and be you, you have to become you. You have to stay committed to the call of God for your life or at least stay committed to clarifying the call.

I want to ask you to step out of the boat this year. Step out of your comfort zone, step away from your limits into His presence. Listen, trust and obey!

As a recovering people pleaser, I know what it means to keep perfecting your purpose until it’s really good. But sometimes it’s because you don’t want to appear like a failure or looser. But guess what, those who stay on the boat are actually the losers. It’s the one who stepped out that was able to practice his faith with the master.

Be one of the exploit makers in 2018, the world is looking for what God has hidden inside you.

Once again happy new year!

There are many great episodes planned for 2018, in the next 2 months we will address ideologies that might be limiting you and how to overcome them and also how to get the help of your family to live a purposeful life. I am so excited for this and you should be too.

Now it’s your turn, go and impact someone with what you’ve got.

Listen on iTunes or Google Play or Soundcloud

Register to be a part of my first Online Course, Ready Set Impact!

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Ep. 45 Transcripts: How To Be Sure Your Idea Is God’s Part 2

Transcript: Coming soon

Merry Christmas dear listeners & friends,

Joy and peace to all this Christmas, especially to my dear friends who are hurting this time. May Jesus, the reason for the season, brighten our days. Pls. listen to this episode to get the special piece from the Sobanjo family.

This picture of my family and some of our acquired children here was taken earlier today at our Annual Christmas Day giveaway in Kuje (near Abuja),  Nigeria. God is good for creating awesome people like these, each one very unique. It was really awesome to see people go home with non-perishable food items to celebrate Christmas. Thanks to all our church members and friends all over the world that join us to make this a great day. Remember to bless people around you this Christmas, especially those who can’t pay you back.

From his abundance, we have all received one gracious blessing after another. John 1:16

Today on Like Jesus podcast (continued from last week) this is the second part of the chat between Ade & I on how Like Jesus podcast became a major part of our family.

1. I learned to cut down on the desire to do more and be more to everyone.
2. Some unnecessary stuff had to be restructured in order to find time to do what I am called to.
3. It’s not easy because people around will complain at first, but they will adjust as you pursue God’s purpose for you as long as they continue to see that you love them.
4. Talk to God always to know what He wants and confirm with other leaders in your life.

Dont forget to join us for Ready Set Impact!

Listen on iTunes or Google Play or Soundcloud

Register to be a part of my first Online Course, Ready Set Impact!

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Ep. 45 Transcripts: How To Be Sure Your Idea Is God’s Part 2

Transcript: Coming soon

It’s always great to know that you are doing what God has called you to do. However, what if you don’t? Here is a discussion between Ade & I on How I was able to check that this podcast is what God wants me to do. This is the part one of this recording, part 2 will air next week.

1. It’s not your tool that matters it is the message that matters
2. Check very well to be sure you can sustain it
3. Count the cost and state it clearly
4. Learn to say No to other ideas
5. Join my VIP Program now to Find Your First Profitable Idea

Listen on iTunes or Google Play or Soundcloud

Register to be a part of my Online Course, Find Your First Profitable Idea

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Ep. 44 Transcripts: How To Be Sure Your Idea Is God’s

Like Jesus Podcast Episode 44  

[Intro Beat]

Hello Everybody, this is Olu Sobanjo. And you’re listening to Like Jesus Podcast. I have Ade Sobanjo here with me today.

Ade: Hello!

Olu: We’re very glad to do this discussion and to share this discussion with you today. Recently as I was spending some time to pray, I remembered what happened to our son, Demi. At some point, we just were thinking that he should go to an eye test and when he went to do the eye test, we discovered that he needed glasses. After that, we were just asking him the experience he’s had before that. And I remembered one day, we were driving in the night to go or very early in the morning to go to the airport and he said to me, “Wow, look at…”  [after he now has the glasses] He said to me, “Mummy, how come you never told me these were street lights?” And I was like, “I don’t know I needed to tell you that these were street lights.” He said, “Because I’ve never seen them. I always used to wonder what kind of light those were…” Because he couldn’t really see them. He’d see some kind of glowing thing – light, but he didn’t know they were just street lights or the oncoming vehicle in the night. He’d just be wondering what was that. But funny enough, he was in school and he’d struggle… He was doing well in school but we didn’t know that he had the challenge of not seeing very well.

And as I was praying recently, I just realized that it’s very interesting that sometimes we may not even know that we can’t see clearly. You know, we’ve been talking about doing what God has put in your heart to do. And as I was praying that day, I remember just feeling that it’s possible that you have an idea and you’re almost… Maybe you’re even running with the idea; maybe you feel like you should start running with the idea but you may not actually know that it may not actually be God’s plan.

What do you think about that, Ade?

Ade: Yeah. I think it’s very important that we are sure that God is directing us to do why we do before we do them. And I think we all run into that problem. You get an idea, you’re so passionate about the idea at the time. You love the idea and you’re ready to commit your money and your time to it. And then after one year, you run out steam – you run out of energy; you run out of money and you put it down. Then, 6 months later, you come up with another brand new idea and you run for another 2 years, only to run out of steam and put it all down. So, maybe what you should do today is just talk about you – your podcast.

Olu: Sure!

Ade: Umm… How did you decide that this is God’s plan? It’s not just another fancy idea; it’s not just another thing that will go on for just 6 months and then you’ll pack it up. What made you know that this is God?

Olu: Thank you! I think that it’s a very good topic and a very good question. It’s going to be a little bit of secret time here today but I think it’s very good to do this.

Personally, I think for a while now, I’ve always thought that I had to share. Every time, I’ll be thinking I need to share; I need to… there’s this message that I want to pass across. I want people to do what God has called them to do. And I’ve always desired that but I mixed it all up at the beginning. I was carried away with the model of sharing the message. I was carried away… it was more of the model – the strategy that I’d use to carry out the message that was more important to me at the beginning. And so, after a while… After I had tried YouTube – I used to do lots of YouTube videos but I realized that I couldn’t sustain it and gradually I just dropped most of the things that I used to do then. You know I mean I’ve had all sorts of ideas and I’ve used different strategies so to speak but gradually, I got to a point… As I continued to fellowship with God, I got to a point where God began to open my eyes to see that it’s not the strategy or the tactics or the tool that I’m going to use to deliver the message that matters. It’s the message itself that matters! And at a point, I was almost even scared of picking it up again because I didn’t want to run my ideas. I was tired of running and stopping. But God began to change my heart to see that the message is very important and people need to hear this. It got to a point, I remember there was a time I got to the point where I said I’m going to be doing this faceless messages that it’s not about me anymore; it’s not about what I want to say. It’s about the message going out and so I… ‘cause I’d get all these write-ups on WhatsApp that people will send and I began to feel that many of these WhatsApp messages and Facebook posts and all these things, they inject fear more than elevate God. And I began to see that you know, I just got angry. So, I said I will be doing this faceless messages – I tried it. I think I did one writing… I wrote a comment and I sent it to my friends and family and I just trusted that it’d just continue to be forwarded like that. And then I did another one that was audio. It was my voice but my name wasn’t there and I sent it out. And I did that and then I began to continue to walk with God and I realized that some other times, I’d want to refer back to these things. It’d be good to have an archive of where it is. And then I began to see, “Okay maybe it will be good for me to put it on my website so that I can always have the archive.” I can always use it – refer back to it and all that.

I was still on that and still trying to see what platform to use, what tool to use when one day I was listening to a message. I can’t remember the title of the message but it was Ashaya that was preaching in that message. I can’t even remember what she was saying but what I got from that message was more like God had a whip in his hand and chased me out of bed and said, “Stop that message now and begin what I’ve called you to do.” That was the day I felt, “Oh! Maybe I should try podcasting. Maybe if I do podcasting it will be easy…” So, I did the first one; the very first podcast – an introduction to Like Jesus Podcast. When I did that, I just saw how easy it was. If I go listen back to that very first one, I still feel I should delete it but I’m not going to delete it because it’s part of the history. And It’s good. I realized that after I started that, what God now did was, I googled how can I start a podcast using my phone? And then I saw an app. The app that I was using then is called opinion podcast or something. So, I paid for the podcasting app and I began to do the recordings and it was so easy for me. Because of the experience that I’ve had with video editing on my YouTube channel and all that, it was so easy for me to handle this app. And by the time I started doing it, it was so easy, I just continued. Gradually as I continued, I discovered that the app crashed and I had to go… Thank God for you that you’re very knowledgeable about it. I had moved over to another platform which is not as easy and where I started from but recently as I was just thinking about it, I realized that God arranged that that day I would start… Because if I had not started that day, I might have been thinking, “Oh Podcasting is so difficult. I can’t do it…” And if you don’t have the time to help me and I don’t want to spend money to do it, then maybe I won’t do it. But I discovered that as I began to do podcasting, it became so easy even easier than writing a blog post. But I really think that it’s good to start with what you think you can sustain.

Ade: Yes! And so what I was trying to find out from you is, how does a person know that this is not another thing that is going to run for just a few months and go off? But you just mentioned that there’s that burning desire. It’s there even when you did it for a while and stopped using the YouTube and you didn’t do it again for a while. God still brought it back up and you had to go and do it. Now, what I want to find out from you is, for people who are just starting out on a project, you started off and you stopped. What are we going to put that in? Was it fear that got you up or you just wanted to go big? What was it that made you start so big and you ran out of steam? And looking back, what are the pitfalls that people should watch out for?

Olu: I think the main thing is what I just said, starting something that you’re sure you can sustain. And sustenance, it’s almost like… In a business, before Coca-Cola or Apple or any big company out there, before they go out and embark on a new project, they’d want to analyze where they are. They’d want to analyze the resources they have. Resources could be money; it could be the human resource; it could be time, it could be… They want to know if they are able to run this race. The Lord Jesus said – He said so Himself. He said, “is there anyone of you that’d want to build a house and will not first count the cost?” I think that was one of the problems that I had. Now, if you ask me and if you take me back to the point where I was, I’d say I counted the cost. And what I did was that I looked at my… you know, this message is really strong on my heart and so I say to myself, I’m going to dedicate one hour every day to do this. It’s a 10 mins video [I can’t remember] or a 5 mins video I was doing then but I’d dedicate one hour to it. And I looked in my schedule and I thought I’d just do this. It’s going to take me some time to pray, some time to write my script and then some time to record, then edit and you know… But really, the truth of the matter is that even though I dedicated that one hour to it, the one hour wasn’t enough to actually get the job done. Let’s say the time when I started this, let’s say I was not a married person, I wasn’t a pastor, I wasn’t a mom, I didn’t have a job… If I didn’t have all that, and it was just me going to the office and just taking time. After the work between 5-10pm every day, I was just free watching TV and all that. If that was my schedule, it’d have made sense. But because of the fact that I had all these other things that I was doing, I thought I counted the cost but it wasn’t well done.

So, I think that for anyone to sustain anything, it’s not just you that you need to count and say, Oh! Yes, I can do it and start jumping. You need to bring it to the table, write it all out then… Just like in a company, the people in one department will do the analysis, another department will do the analysis of the project and then they bring it together in a group and say this is what we need. Then they analyze it. They say “do we do it now? Or do we postpone it or do we…” This is one thing that I could have done. I could have brought my agenda, clearly written agenda to you and then we discuss it together and then we commit to it. Now, that was the difference between then and now. Then, I was running with it and I would do it as long as you know, I don’t want anybody to stop me. But, there was no formal discussion where I said I want to do this and let’s do… And then apart from discussing with your family, there’s also the aspect of Am I able to sustain it spiritually – whatever it is that God is calling you to do? Because, when God has put something in your heart to do, there is always the adversary that won’t want it to happen. So, you need to spend time – quality time with God so that the message that God has given to you is preserved and you’re able to run with it and actually not throw it down as you go. So, I think it’s much more than we think when we say, can I sustain it? Do I have enough capacity to be able to do this? It is much more than what we are really ready to face and actually go for it and say Okay, let me do a detailed analysis. Can I do it? Maybe I should take it easier than the way I started… Because sometimes what happens is you get the idea of what you are supposed to be doing 10 years from now and you want to start that now. But sometimes, it’s good to start small. I bring it to you, we say, “Oh! this is very elaborate but we don’t have this kind of capacity yet. Let’s start with very little part of it and then let’s grow.” And this is what I’ve seen in this new start for me because then we are all doing it together. We understand, the children understand and at the time, my children were very small. They couldn’t understand all these but now it’s a lot easier.

Ade: Yes. Thank you. As you were talking, there were some questions that were coming up in my mind. I’m thinking of, do you have experience of some ideas that they are not just God’s idea? Because in this situation, it was God’s idea, the application was too big and so you had to pull back. But what of someone that has an idea that is really supposed to be killed for now? The idea itself is not supposed to fly? Maybe it is going to come up or it is going to be an addition or it is just supposed to be given to someone, how do we know that? What are some of the things that you can look back into your archive and help somebody?

Olu: Oh yes! Oh yes! Thank you for bringing that up. That’s one of the reasons why it took me time even to get to this point because my personal you know, the way my brain works, and I’m assuming now that I have mingled with a lot of people; I see that I am the only one that is like that. Ideas keep coming in like a flood. So, I get the idea of what God wants me to do but then I have all these other big ideas – huge ideas that come in. You need to actually look at them and see, is this what you really want to do?

I remember one day, God said to me in… I was just looking at the conference that we do – the ladies conference that we do and it was at that year, I can’t remember 2-3 years ago, as I was looking at the ladies, I began to see God say to me, this is the reason why I gave you this idea. Before that, I used to think that it was for me to do all these things. But then I began to see that, no! It was for me to empower many of the women to be able to do what He has called them to do. And so, I began to see that as the ideas are coming, I should actually be writing them down to share with other people. The point is not for me to do. But before that, I used to want to do every new idea. And they’d look really fantastic. I’d see the way it’d work well with where I am right now and I’d just want to start running with it. My brain becomes really busy calculating and my blood pumps… I’m so excited, you know, I get a lot of adrenaline and I just want to go for it. I’m so excited for these things but then, it is not what God is calling me to do.

So, how do I differentiate and say this one is not God’s plan for me and this one is God’s plan for me? I think the way I’ve looked at it and I’ve been able to do it now is based on my walk with God, I’ve been able to declutter to the point where I realize that the reason why He sent me here is this: to empower other people to do what He has called them to do and to encourage them to do so. Now, I’ve seen that as the core and you’ve really helped me a lot where you keep… I remember back in the day you’d say, “But where are you going with this? What are you trying to do with this?” I’ve been able to get to a point where I see it now – I see my call, what God has called me to do and I want to ask myself each new idea that comes and say, how does that fit into what God has called me to do? I want to have a new school – kids club that will help kids. I have always… I love it. I want it for my children and so I should create it and start doing it because right now, I’m in a place where it’s not available so I should start doing it. But then I look at it, “Can I actually sustain it? Will I be able to sit down there? Would somebody else be able to carry out the process if I am not there?” And all these questions help me to look at the idea and then I trash it. Eventually, I got to a point where I’m not trying to achieve anymore. I’m just trying to be who He made me to be. And I think the more you walk with God, the more you get to a point where you’re not struggling to make a point. You’re not struggling to tell the world that you are somebody. You just be yourself and the more you do that, the easier it is to say No to many other things that come.

 

Do I still get ideas now? Yes, I do! In short, even in this new podcast and all these things that I do now, I still have different ideas but it’s a lot easier for me now to just write it down. And maybe it’s for tomorrow. I don’t know but right now, let me face what I’m doing. This is what God has called me to do. I’ll face it, I’ll do it well and then we will see what God will do from there. So, it’s very important that each one would look at it and say this idea, how does it fit into what God has called me into? So, it’s very important to know what God has called me to do here on earth. It starts with making other people know the joy and the love of God and the name of Jesus to be elevated. That’s the main thing for every one of us but in different ways, He puts a strong desire in your heart for something and you are going for it. The more you do that, the more you submit and surrender to what God is calling you to do, the more it is easier for you to do – to be able to say No to other things.

Ade: That is fantastic. I remember that question, you answered more of that in your course Ready Set Impact, the first class I think. So, those who have not taken the course, go ahead and take it…

Olu: Oh yeah!

Ade: …So that you can know more about that. Now, I have another question for you just to help someone that is starting off. They have this idea, they believe it is God but they are doing some work now. They are working. For yourself, this podcast that you are doing now, how are you… you know you said to write down the plan and make sure you can sustain it What will be in that plan that will tell us that I can sustain this? I know that at that time when you were doing those things, you said you could sustain it so what are some of the things? I want you to go deeper into the plan and some things that they can try because sometimes, you can’t know this unless you make effort. So, how can they test out the sustainability of the plan that they have?

Olu: Thank you I…

Ade: How did you do yours?

Olu: I think that it’s always good to look at… If you are going to sustain anything, it’s always good to look at where you are and see what you have – the resources that you have and where you are at, okay? I am talking about when I say where you are at, it’s very important for example to look at your experiences, your gifts, your talents, your skills… You need to look at all that and write it down. Like you said, we’ve done this well in the Ready Set Impact Course and it’d be very beneficial to anyone that goes to take that course. So, you write down all these things – the resources that you have.

Then your relationships. Your relationships. If you have, for example, to do a good recording, it is good to have a place where there is not a lot of noise. If you have a baby in the house, it may not be so easy to get that done. Except if you have enough money to have an extra room where you can lock it up and soundproof the whole place and make it your studio. Right now, I don’t have that and I have something similar to – close to it but it is not complete. Even at the time, it was far from it. So, it is good to look at your relationships, look at your home setting, look at your schedule at work, look at your schedule at church, some of the commitment that you already have – things that you have said yes to and you have committed to. Some of the things… You may need to drop some things, some relationships that may not be necessary at the time in order to do what God has called you to do. You may need to cut down on some of those. But really, the main thing is just to look at all of the things that you have where am I right now and what can I sustain?

For example, when I was starting this, I didn’t start with buying a microphone or buying a tripod stand or buying some of these things. I had many of the things already and then I started with my phone. I didn’t start with a new recording set that will make it look professional. No, No, No! I realized that I could even start with my phone and people were asking me, are you actually recording that from your phone? Yes, I was. It was later on that I bought a better mic for the recording and I’m still doing it on my phone. Now, the next level is to do it with a better recording set so it’s good to start with what you have – the equipment, the tools, the things that you already have now. The only money I spent to start this was $5.99. That was the cost of the app at the time. And that was it. I was just using that. But you know, what happens is that if you go big, you will go home. You may go home because you’ve spent so much and you are not getting so much and you get tired. So, it is good to analyze all these things and say, what do I have? What can I do with what I already have? And then at the same time, what you are doing is that you are trying to… you want to, first of all, be committed to the thing. If you start too big, you reduce the chances of you being fully committed. I mean, I don’t know if I said that well. If you start too big, your mind may be clouded to the point where you forget about the fact that you may not still be 100% committed to what you are starting to do but you already spent $1000. But it’s good for you to, first of all, prove to yourself that you are in and get regular. For example, in my podcast, I bought the $5.99 thing just to prove to myself and to prove to you that I’m ready. I want to do this now and then gradually after that – after I had done this regularly for so long, I could now pay for a bigger platform that I’m now using. And then I would discover that I need more equipment and tools and then I get it, you know, gradually like that. What happens is, usually when we say we are trying to see, can I sustain it, we are looking at, Oh, yes. I can buy this and buy that and buy all the things that I need. Yes, I can sustain it but really, that’s not the point. The point is, do I have enough commitment first of all inside of me and then can I start small?

So, I’m looking at the time here and I’m thinking that it will be good to wrap it up here. I think we may still… I don’t know if you still have…

Ade: Yes, I still have lots of questions because I know that people want to start something and that is what this podcast is about – to get people to do what God has called them to do. So, it’s good to really get some other things that one may have to think about and so maybe I’d ask you some more questions and we can do that next week.

Olu: Sure! We can do that. So, people, we are going to wrap it up here. We’ll continue again next week.  And before we do that, why don’t we pray? Do you want to pray?

Ade: Yeah, Sure! Father, we thank you for everyone that is listening to us – listening to this podcast. Especially those that have this idea, they are thinking in their minds that this is you, God speaking to them and they are about to take off but they are wondering, Is this another fad? Is this going to just go on for 2 more years and then fade off like some other projects they’ve done before? Father, I pray for just a confirmation for each one of these people that they will hear deep in their spirit that you are with them and that you are going to help them. And as we’ve talked about writing down the plan and really looking at the action steps that need to be taken over a long period of time, we ask that you help them to write that and as they write it, if it is not your will, declare to them Father. And for those who know what you’ve told them to do and have written the plan, I pray that they will be encouraged to take steps this week to be able to move the project forward. We pray for anybody that is going through a difficult time for intervention, for healings, for breakthroughs, for wisdom in the name of Jesus.

Olu: Amen

Ade: Thank you, Father. And this time as the end of the year comes and we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we pray that Joy will fill the heart of everyone. In Jesus name,

Both: Amen

Olu: Amen. Thanks, everybody. See you again next week and yeah, Bye for now.

If you don’t mind repeating exactly what you did this year in the new year then you can stop reading at this point, but if you want a better year, you want to be able to pursue your dreams in the new year with clarity and focus then you need to take the following steps:

1. Take charge, don’t just go with the flow
2. Take it easy, be driven but take caution
3. Take time to plan, don’t just hope.
4. Join us for Ready Set Impact!

Listen on iTunes or Google Play or Soundcloud

Register to be a part of my first Online Course, Ready Set Impact!

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Ep. 43 Transcripts: What Are You Doing In Order To Have A Better 2018?

Like Jesus Podcast Episode 43

You’re listening to Like Jesus Podcast. This is Olu Sobanjo. I want to welcome you again to this episode today. Someone said if you are going in the same direction, you will arrive at your destination but the question is, Is that destination what you really want?

A year is ending and another one is unfolding. If you continue the way you were this year, are you confident that that you would be excited about the result you’d get a year from now? Now that’s a question that you need to ask yourself. I’ve met so many people that are really busy as in very busy. From far away when you look at them, you can tell that they are busy building something. However, as you get closer to them, you start to notice that they are actually building blocks however, none of those blocks are on top of the other. The truth is that it is not bad to build blocks but at some point, it will be important to know what structure you’re trying to build. And it’s important to know why you are building your blocks. It’s important so you know how many blocks you really need and it’s very good to have all these structured out. In short, it’s better to start with a clear goal in mind but many a times, we don’t because we don’t actually understand where we are going. We don’t understand what we’re doing but that’s fine. Because a lot of people are like that. You see, many people that you see succeeding today didn’t start with a clear goal in mind. They just jumped in and they started going and gradually, they start seeing that they’re figuring it out. And so for yourself at the same time, you’re going to have to ask yourself the same question, What am I doing? Am I just busy building blocks or have I started putting the structure together? You see, the same set of people that are busy – occupied with activities – to them, it’s actually just wrong to sit down. It’s almost a sin to sit down because what will you be sitting down doing? You need to be busy. But the truth of the matter is it’s not about being busy. It’s about knowing what you’re doing.

My message to you today is that though it’s very important not to be lazy, success is as a result of great planning. Ask around and you’d hardly find people that just stumbled on success. Yes, they may stumble on a strategy or a tactic that is making better results for them but strategic planning and having a goal must be one of the first things that they start with. Now, if your year has been great and you don’t mind repeating exactly what you did this year in the new year, then you can stop listening at this point but if you want a better year – you want to be able to pursue your dream in the new year with clarity and focus, then you need to take the following steps.

Number 1 is you would need to take charge! Don’t just go with the flow.Now, it’s good to understand what’s going on around you so that when opportunities come, you can take advantage of them but you don’t just keep waiting – sitting down and hoping that something is going to happen. I’ve met a lot of people that are waiting and “trusting God” they say. They say they are trusting God for somebody – their helper to come. But you see, the truth of the matter is that many people that help, won’t help you just sitting down. They won’t help you just waiting around hoping that something will happen. They want to see you that you are actually taking charge. You are actually putting some stones on top of the other; you’re actually laying the foundation a little bit before they come and they help you, however they can. You must take charge and don’t just go with the flow. Don’t just hope that something will happen. Start doing something!!! And then trust God that that which you are doing, God will use it to form something great.

The second step that I have – the second thing that you need to do is take it easy! Now, you must get to the point also where you are not distracted with trying to achieve that you are not able to enjoy each day as it comes. Now, it’s possible to be so driven that you’re not even taking care of yourself. You’re not taking advantage of people around you. You’re not taking advantage of the opportunities that are around you. You’re just so focused and running. Now, as you’re running, you need to pay attention to what’s around you. Take it easy. Take caution. Take care of yourself. Take care if the people in your life. Be in the life of the people around you. Don’t just cut them off and say you are driven by success. Now, that doesn’t bring any good solution either.

Then the last one is you’re going to have to set time to plan. Now, the aim here is not just to hope. The aim is to actually plan. And how do you plan? First, you need to start with what you have right now. I’ve met so many people that the moment they hear they need to plan, they take a pen and paper and then they begin to write huge numbers. It doesn’t matter where they are right now, they just think, “Oh, I should be able to achieve x, y and z in the next five months.” Now, it’s possible in your dreams maybe but in reality, it’s usually not as easy as that. And you must first of all acknowledge where you are right now. You see one thing… As I thinking about this today, this thought came to my head that where I am today is as a result of my decisions up till today. Now, if I am at this point and I have so much success, then I should be thanking God because some of the decisions that I have made in the past have brought me to this place. But if I am at the moment where right now, I lack so many things, equally, my decisions have brought me here. And I must be able to acknowledge that and accept it; that I am at this point right now and I need to start building from where I am. And if you’re not going to start from where you are, you’ll be wasting… you’ll be starting wrong. In order to start right, you need to acknowledge where you are and start from there. And then the next thing in planning is, where do you want to get to? What’s the end goal for you? Are you just hoping that something good will come out? Now, that’s not a good goal. It’s good to have concrete, measurable, realistic goals. And time bound too so that in the next 6 months – we are going into the new year so you can say in the next 6 months, I want to be able to achieve xyz, and xyz must be measurable. As you do this, you will see that you’re getting yourself ready for a better year.

And that’s why I’m very excited to invite you – if you don’t know already about it because I’ve been talking about this for a while now. If you don’t know about my new course Ready Set Impact, you need to get yourself onto that. Now, I believe that each person, God has put something in your mind. God has put something in your heart. God designed to be doing some many things that God wants you to use to impact the people around you. And if you’re not going to focus on planning and putting your mind to it, you’re just going to say, “Yeah. Sure! Anything happens… Anything goes… If I get there, I get there. If I don’t, that’s fine. It’s God’s will” No! You need to focus. You need to put your mind to it and you need to put yourself into this process of getting ready to launch out what God has put in your heart.

On this course – the Ready Set Impact, it’s an online course. It’s designed to help you turn your ideas into realities. It’s supposed to help you first of all, find out what it is – how do you clarify and identify those ideas that God has given you and then how do you know who you are set to impact? How do you focus? How do you get yourself? And how do you start out? And so many things have been out into this. There are so many frustrations that people have – where do you get money? How do you get your family involved? How do you combine this with so much that is going on?… You know there is so many things that you need to learn from this course. And I want to invite you if you’re not registered yet. Within this week, I believe on Wednesday, classes will be open and you will be able to start listening and taking the courses. It’s my very first course in the purposeuniversity.online and so I’m very excited. I’d like to invite you to get on board. Go over to purposeuniversity.online and sign up to be a part of this course so that by Wednesday, as soon as class starts, you’ll be one of the first set of people to enter the class and start taking the courses. And I tell you, it’s going to be a big benefit to you. It’s going to be a huge help to you.

Now, if you know somebody that needs a better year than they’ve had before, I want you to forward this to them. Tell them to go to purposeuniversity.online. Let them register for the course and definitely, it’s going to be definitely, a big bonus for them because this has been designed to help them achieve their goals. Alright? So, you want to go over to purposeuniversity.online and begin to see how you can plan a better year.

Now the last thing which is my question for you today is, In order to be able to do what God has called you to do, what are you willing to say No to in order to be able to say Yes to what God is calling you to do? Now, it’s very important, you know, you need to make out time… For example, for this course, you need to make out time for you to be able to go through the materials and actually do the exercises that follow. But I tell you if you can focus on making this happen; if you can focus on getting the classes and the lectures in and practicing what it says, I can guarantee you that you are going to have a better year. Alright! So, go over to the website purposeuniversity.online and sign up for the course. And let’s take it from there. Share it with other people that you know because I desire that God will use them to transform you and bring you to what He wants you to do in order for you to begin to impact the people around you.

Alright! So, why don’t we pray together? Let’s do that. Father, we thank you so much for this time we’ve had to just discuss and for your children that are listening to this. Lord, I desire that you would transform each person and you will help them plan a better year as we are going into the new year. And Lord, I just desire that you’d open their eyes to see that which you have in store for them. Lord, I pray that this course, Ready Set Impact will be a huge benefit to all those that listen to it, all those that watch it, all those that go through the classes in the name of Jesus. Purpose University will be a blessing to many in the mighty name of Jesus. Lord, I pray that as we go into this new year, it’s going to be an awesome year in the mighty name of Jesus. Help us to clarify things as we go in and help us to achieve as we enter into the new year. Thank you mighty God. In Jesus name we’ve prayed, Amen!

Alright! So for me, I’m so excited. I just celebrated my birthday and this course is something that God laid on my heart to give out and do for free. It’s a free course. You’re not going to pay anything except the time that it takes for you to do it but it’s an investment. I want you to count it as an investment into your life and your future and the future of people that are waiting for you to impact them with what you have inside of you. So, head over to purposeuniversity.online and make sure that you’re in class. Check your email. You’re going to register and confirm that you want to be a part of the class and then on Wednesday morning, check your email and then you can sign up to be in class.

Alright! God bless you and talk to you again next week. Bye Bye!

 

Biggest Takeaways You Don’t Want to Miss:

1. I am growing older and so are you
2. Time is running out, so the time is now
3. Everyone must answer the question: what would you love to be remembered for when you leave this earth?
4. If you are not taking steps towards that now you must
5. Join my Online course to help you with turning your idea into reality today before registration closes.

Listen on iTunes or Google Play or Soundcloud

Register to be a part of my first Online Course, Ready Set Impact!

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Ep. 42 Transcripts: Time is Running Out: Ready, Set… Impact!

Like Jesus Podcast, Episode 42. Drum rolls!!!

[Intro Beat]

Hello and Welcome to Like Jesus Podcast. This is Olu Sobanjo. I’m glad to be talking to you again today. I hope you are having a great day.

Now, 2017 is coming to a close and personally, I’m very excited at this time of the year because my birthday is right around the corner. And I’m so so glad. Each time my birthday is approaching, I’m so excited. I’m especially excited this year and I’m going to tell you why. But before I go ahead and tell you why, I traveled recently to see my parents-in-law and my parents. And it was such a beautiful trip. It was really packed and it was just a weekend – Friday to Monday – and it was tiring. However, I still came back really really full because you know, when you hang out with older people, you learn a lot. I was really excited to go back to where I grew up. You know, it brings this feelings back and sharpens my dreams a lot more – brings back to memory some of the dreams that I used to have. And so it was really really good. However, my parents were in church when I got to the city so I had to go meet them in church and of course, when I got to church, I met so many people that have not seen me in many years. I was even shocked because somebody was saying to me – one big brother – one of my family friends, was saying to me, “You know I’ve not seen you in 12 years” and I was like, “12 years come on!!!” But of course, with Facebook, it doesn’t feel like that. So yeah! But it was good to see him; it was good to see many other people.

Now, In my culture, just a normal way of greeting, especially those you haven’t seen in a long time is that you kneel down to greet them. That is not something that I do on a daily basis. I hardly find people to kneel down to on a daily basis. And so… I don’t do frog jump when I’m doing my exercises. I do running around, I do walks, I even do jumping jacks and jogging sometimes but I never do frog jumps. And so when I was there, I had to greet a lot of elderly people and so I was just kneeling down and rising up; kneeling down and rising up for many people. They were all very excited to meet… I was excited to see them. And it was fun. However, I realized that at some point, I couldn’t even continue walking. I got to a point where my legs were beginning to freeze, like I couldn’t continue.

[Laughs]

I never experienced something like that before because I mean, how can I have… my legs are there but I can’t move. And I’ve never done frog jump to that point before. By the time I got home to my parents house that day, I was just knocked out. I just slept and I was so tired. I was expecting that after having a warm bath and after rubbing ointment and all that on it, that my legs would come back to normal the next morning but nope! It did not. For days after I had returned; 4 – 5 days after I’d returned, my legs were still hooked. Then I started doing some frog jump, kneeling and stuffs like that to get me back into shape. And right now, you know, this is like almost a week after I came back and it’s much better… I mean, I don’t even feel the pain anymore. So that’s good.

But why am I sharing that with you? The truth of the matter is that my knees and my thighs are not the way they were when I first started living. Not even when I was 18! They are not the same. As I approach my birthday, I remember, especially even with this kind of situation that I’m not getting any younger. I’m getting older! That’s what that means and I don’t know what you’re thinking right now. I wonder if you are laughing at me and thinking, “Yeah, Old Woman…” Yeah! well, laugh at me but I’m not the only one growing up here. You are at the same time. I remember a few days ago, I was just in church and I was trying to read from a paper Bible. The letters were medium to small and I tried to read this thing. The light wasn’t so bright in the section of the church where I was and I tried… I tried to strain my eyes. I couldn’t figure anything out of what was written on the pages and so I had to use my phone to light the place… And I realized that even my sight is not 100% and once again, it’s not the same way it used to be and I’m growing older.

The main reason why I’m sharing this with you is time is running out for us. Now you may be looking at yourself; I’m getting to an age where I’m feeling this is the prime of my life and this is the time to do a lot more. But as much as I’m entering into the prime ages or I’m in the prime ages, I still have to remember that time is running out at the same time. And time is running out for you as well. You see the purpose for this is, I know many of you out there that you are listening to me, you have ideas that somehow you feel God has put in your heart. You’ve tried to shove them off, you’ve tried to discard them but somehow they keep coming back. You have this passion within you that you feel “I need to do this… I need to do that…” And you’ve not been able to do it maybe because you’re very busy; maybe because you’ve not really had time to focus and understand what exactly it is and so because of that, you just let it go. Maybe you’re so busy with your career that you’re not able to spend extra time to build and develop this idea. And I’m talking to you. This podcast today is about you.

The idea that God gave you, there’s a reason why He gave you. There’s a skill that He gave you and there’s a reason for that as well. When He gave you all that, there’s a reason – He wants to achieve something. And that’s why the past couple of weeks I’ve been reaching out to you my listeners and I’ve been asking, what’s the frustrations that you have in the area of achieving, you know, turning your goals, ideas into reality? And many have talked about many different things. Some have said even just having the guts to start is a big thing because you know, there’s so much going on. Where do I find the boldness to step out and just start? Somebody else told me, I don’t even know what steps to take. How do I start? Somebody said money is a big frustration. How do I get funding – money to execute these goals that I have? Somebody else said I’ve started many things and the obstacles that I encounter after starting something, is too much that I don’t even… I fear starting something because I’ve really sort of failed in many other things that I’ve started and so I’m not interested in starting again. Somebody else said How do I combine all these things – transforming an idea into reality. How.do I combine that with so huge schedule that I have already? I have all these, you know… As a man in the house, I have so much to do. The bills have to be paid… As a woman in the house, I have so much to do. The children don’t run to the nextdoor neighbor’s mum to solve their problems. They still come to me… How do I find time to execute another plan when I have not even balanced what I am doing well? And so many. So many… Somebody said how do I even… how am I sure that somebody would listen? How do I find somebody that’ll listen? And many many frustrations that people have. How do I carry my family along on this task that I have? How do I prioritize and organize my life? How do I find time? Many many reasons why people find it hard to turn their ideas to reality.

And that’s why I have made up my mind to execute this online course that people can take and it can be there for you – that you can always come back to and you can use it, especially as we are finishing 2017 and entering into 2018 or whenever you are listening to this. Ready Set Impact is ready for you to be able to turn your ideas into reality. As a child of God, you need to learn how to execute the plan that He has put in you. The Bible says the world awaits the manifestations of the sons and daughters of God. And that which God has put inside of you, He wants to be able to execute it. But if you don’t know what to do – if you have all these challenges that they are like roadblocks and you are not able to progress then that’s why a lot of people focus so much on their work that they don’t focus on the thing that God wants to use them here to do.

We just concluded a conference and my husband asked a question. He said, You need to define your identity. You need to ask yourself, when you are no longer here, how would you love to be remembered? When you’re done with your activities here on earth, how would you want to be remembered? It’s a question that we all have to ask. I want to be remembered as somebody that is encouraging everyone to pursue that plan that God has for them despite the difficulties – despite the limitations. I want to be that person that encourages you to get all from God and be all that you can be in God. And that’s what I want. When all’s said and done, I want people to be able to remember me for that. And I don’t know about you. What exactly is it that you’d love to be remembered for? And if this thing that you’d love to be remembered for is not the job you do right now, if it’s the idea that is still on your head, then you might as well, start settling your mind and getting ready to plug into this. It may be a ministry idea; it may be a business idea; it may even be different other things, platforms like writing a book, writing songs, creating a website… Different things like that that you’d need to do. But you need to be on this course and you need to plug in so that you can do this and do it well.

Somebody said, you know, when I went to Lagos for the conference, somebody said – this is a quote but he wasn’t sure exactly who said it and I’m quoting again too, I dunno who said it but he said, “The salary that you are getting is what you are being given to shut down the plan of God or to shut down your passion… The salary that you have, is what you are being given to ignore and shut down the passion and dream that you have…” Think about it. Now if you’re working in a position where you love what you are doing and you feel this is what God has called you into, you may not have a 100% of why you really really like to do but you are on the path, that’s fine. Sometimes, you find yourself that what you really love is going in the direction C but then where you are right now is in the direction Z. You say, “there’s no way this two are going to meet…” so you might as well begin to look at your job as something that is paying you now, in order to be able to find what your dream really is and then you begin to pursue that.

Now on this course, we are going to do that. We are going to take time to figure out what’s going on with some people and I’m looking out for people that want to be case studies. You want us to use your idea as a case study, I’d really really love you to go to my website, olusobanjo.com, and leave a comment or send me a voice recorded message. Now you can do that on my website. You’d see green button somewhere on top or on the side, I’m not sure what platform you are using to – whether on the desktop or on your phone, you’d just see green button that says, “leave a voice message” and so you click on that. And if you want to be used – you want your case to be used the case study on the course, it’s good because then we can help you literally turn this idea into a reality. And so leave me a voice message. If you have a question also, you can leave me a voice message on the website and I’ll address the question. Of course, you can leave comments as well but voice message, you can do that now on my website. And I’ll be glad to see… maybe we’ll even do a hangout, Facebook live or something where we come together and analyze your idea and break it down until we get to the core of it and then we start fleshing it out.

One of the things I’m going to teaching you on the course is How do you even verify that that idea is valid – is a viable one?” Because you see, many ideas that we have, they are not viable. They are not going to last. The reason why many of these ideas didn’t work in the first place is because they are not viable. They are not concrete enough and so I’d give you the strategy, the formula to know, to use and to validate an idea even before you start. For example, the person that is saying, I’m looking to… I want to know who will listen, we need to do that even before you start. We need to find the listeners and begin to address their needs even before you start. So, there’s a lot that we are going to be covering on the course and we’re going to deal with even some limiting beliefs that affects you and affects the idea.

So, I want to encourage you – go over to olusobanjo.com if you’re not registered – you don’t get an email from me on a weekly basis, you go onto my website and you enter your name and email address to enter into the course Ready Set Impact and then we’d… on my birthday – 7th November by God’s grace, I’m believing that the first course – the first set of module will be out that you can start working on. Then we can look at case study using somebody’s case to get it better because then we can… for you that will be doing the case study, you have higher chance of starting 2018 with a very nice roadmap of what’s going on. And obviously other people that are going to be on the course but if yours is the case study, you know that you are hiring a coach that’d guide you through it for free. So I want you to get on this and let do this together. 2018 is a great year that God wants to do a lot of great things in our lives and He wants you to be light to the world. He says you don’t light a candle and put it under bushel, you put it on top of a table because a lot of people need to see it. There’s something inside you that the person out there is looking for and if you are not going to plugin and find that thing and get started doing it, then the person that needs it won’t get it. Then we are going to use other people that have achieved their ideas also, we’ll bring them and get them on this course as well so that they can inspire you as well.

Alright! So, that’s what I want to share with you today. And I want also pray with you so let’s pray together.

Father, I thank you so much because you have a plan for us. I thank you because you have a plan for your son or your daughter that is listening to this. I thank you because you’re the one that is putting this desire – you’ve been putting that desire since they were little or since a long time ago or maybe it just came. And this desire is not for fun. I know that you want to use this desire and you want to turn it into something that’d help many others. And many times Lord, I see all the things that we benefit from today. Even the recording set that I have here, it was an idea in the mind of somebody before but now I use it, I use this pen, I’m sitting in a couch… you know, I have many things that were ideas in the mind of somebody but I thank you because you helped those people to turn them into reality. All my listeners that are listening to this, I pray oh God that you’d help them that they will recognize the ideas that are in them that’d need to be turned to reality. And this week as we enter into the Ready Set Impact Course, daddy that you’d help them and they’d begin to see new things and the way you want them to go. In the mighty name of Jesus. Lord, we look forward to all the things that you are going to do with this course and we ask oh God that you help everyone that’ll be a part of it, help everyone that needs to know about it to know about it. In the mighty name of Jesus. Blessed be your name oh Lord and let your name alone be glorified. I pray for all my listeners, I pray that this week will be great for each person in the mighty name of Jesus. For those on my team as well, this week will be great for each person in the name of Jesus. We love you Lord, we thank you for everything. Blessed be your name. In Jesus name, Amen!

Alright. So don’t forget. If you’re reading or listening to this and you’re not getting emails from me – you’ve not at any point gone to enter your email address to my website and your name, go over to olusobanjo.com, register for the Ready Set Impact Course. This course is going tone for a limited time so you want to be in before I close the gate to it. So the number of people that registers by the time we close the course is what we are going to work with. So if 2018 is important to you and you want to be in this course and you need guidance to enter and to achieve more in 2018 with God’s help, then you want to register as soon as the gates are open – as soon as the class opens and after a while, we’ll shut the gate and it’d just be just us that are inside. So you wanna be on that.

God bless you and talk to you again next week. See you all on the inside of the course. God bless you. Bye!

Biggest Takeaways You Don’t Want to Miss:

1. There are ideas, dreams, and visions. This is in response to visions
2. First, you need to be satisfied with your life in Christ. Be at peace with who you are.
3. Try to catch the experience or feel the feeling of where the vision is going.
4. Imagine its a Yes, what steps will you take?
5. Be emotionally detached from the idea. Ask yourself: who has done it before? What could go wrong?

Listen on iTunes or Google Play

Register to be a part of my first Online Course, Ready Set Impact!

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Ep. 41 Transcripts: How To Critically Evaluate Your Ideas

[Intro ]

Olu: You’re listening to Like Jesus Podcast. This is Olu Sobanjo. I have my husband here with me as well, Ade Sobanjo.

Ade: Hello Everybody!

Olu: You’re welcome again today.

This week, we want to look at, How do I critically evaluate my ideas and vision? We’ve been talking about spending the time to hear God and God’s guidance.  After you begin to hear God speak to you, the next step is to clarify the idea that comes. The point is not to start running with what you get because you still need to fine-tune it until it becomes perfect or gets to the point where it is 80%, like what Pastor Ade was sharing the other day; where it begins to be clear enough to know that, “Okay, I need to begin to go – proceed with this now.” But before it gets to that point, you need to clarify it in your own head; you need to critically analyze it and evaluate it so you are able to see what exactly it is that may be a challenge in the future. Or maybe you need to prepare in some way for that. So, you really need to evaluate what you are doing. But, I discovered that over the years, one of the problems that I have had personally is that I didn’t want to share my ideas with people because I feel that they are going to dismantle my ideas and then, nothing will be left over in that idea.

There was a post that I did a couple of weeks ago about surrendering what you’ve always had as an idea of who you want to become to God. I’m going to link that post in the description for this episode where you can go back and listen to and read it. What I was saying in that is, you see, as we grow up, depending on the experiences that you had; depending on your childhood; depending on some of the things you’ve gone through, what happens is that you create a picture of who you want to be in your head. And, everywhere you’re going, every person you are meeting, you want them to help you achieve that thing that you want to become. When you meet people that are helping you, you like them. When you meet people that make you feel like you’re not as good as what the picture is in your head, you would not want to hang out with them. You’d be fighting them, getting angry or getting mad at what they do and all that.

I remember I used to look at things in this way where I’d hold on tightly to who I want to be. When it gets to the point of sharing the idea with somebody, most especially when it comes to sharing with my husband, I’m thinking “Why is it that you always poke a hole in my ideas? Whatever I want to do, you have something wrong with it…” That’s the I look at it because I thought in my head, “This is what I want to be and I don’t want anybody to take that away from me.” But the problem with that is that you are not able to critically analyze and evaluate your ideas. And when you do it, you start and you stop because the challenge that you were supposed to figure out before you start, you didn’t figure it out; you didn’t analyze it to the point of discovering that this challenge is going to come. But you jumped in and then you have to jump out or you cover your face out of it.

And I began to discover that this is one of the reasons why a lot of us that are maybe like me [people that are like me], don’t achieve many of the things that God puts in our hearts because we don’t critically analyze it. Because, you are scared that if you analyze it, you won’t have anything left. I discovered this on a particular day when I had been planning to have a project and somebody asked me a question and I was cut off guard. I didn’t have an answer to that question. In my head, I’d been thinking about this project and it’s so beautiful but the question was bringing another side to what I was thinking and then I realized that my husband had not just been poking a hole in my ideas. I really need to learn how to look at it critically to be able to project into the future and see how it is done. After that was when I began to… That was when I wrote that post I was talking about and realized that I always want to do this and this is because of the fact that there is a void inside – there’s this scarcity that is inside. At a point, I wasn’t completely satisfied with whatever God was calling me to and I wanted to paint it a little bit better. I wanted to appear a little bit better in my own eyes or maybe in the eyes of other people. So, I hoard that idea but the problem is that I still don’t do it or I still don’t get to successfully achieving that thing. I began to realize that I actually need to… and if you’re out there, you have this idea; you’re scared to share with people; you’re thinking if you share it with people you’re going to mess it up or they are going to mess it up for you and you’re not going to have anything, it’s partly because you are still maybe holding on tightly to an idea of who you want to be and you are not completely satisfied with what God wants you to be.

So, that’s why I want to ask you, sweetie, the questions today on… I know that it’s easier for somebody else to help you critically look at what you are looking for but I want us to look at the idea of “How do we even learn?” Even on your own before you even start sharing with other people, how do you learn to critically evaluate your own ideas in order to be able to achieve it, I mean, in order to increase the chances of actually achieving what you want to achieve?

Ade: Yes. Thank you so much for the opportunity again. I really thank God that people are really engaging with this podcast and they are learning and we are learning as well. So, it’s great!

As you were speaking, I realized that there are different levels of this that we are talking about. There are ideas, dreams, and visions. I’m talking about ideas – ways to improve what you are already doing. I want to call those ideas. So you’re already doing stuff and you have ideas to improve it. So those are ideas. Dreams are things that you really would love to achieve and I want to define vision as those things that you feel God is saying to you to do. It’s a little bit stronger than just dreams. That’s how I want to put it but sometimes, you can look at it as the same – big things that have to do with your whole life.

Now, let me answer that question with reference to things that are big like that – vision. You know you have this idea of something big that you are going to do with your life and you are thinking, How do I critically evaluate this idea? Is it a God idea or just a good idea? Is it a fantastic idea that is good? Is it for me to do or for another person to do? Is it the right time to do it?

So, how do you do that?

I think the first thing from what you were saying is you need to be satisfied with God. I think that’s a very fundamental step – you need to be satisfied… I think that people who achieve more, are people who are at rest where they are already. They feel that they are themselves. They are where they ought to be but there’s more than God can do with them so they are not trying to achieve. However, they are trying to be impactful – to impact more.

And, you may not think like that – like that’s a problem. Like you were saying, it may not even occur to you that the reason why you are afraid to really look deep or that you don’t know how to look deep, is because you have not yet settled the fact that “You know what? Where I’m at now is where God wants me to be. I’m just wanting to know if he wants to do more and if he leaves me here, I’m okay!” Once you settle that then, you are able to now look at whatever ideas more critically because you are not afraid that even if it doesn’t happen, then it doesn’t happen. That means that I’ve checked very well to be sure that it’s God or it is not God.

So, that’s how I looked at my ideas or my vision. When I was going into this – when I was going to decide whether I was going to continue to operate as an engineer or I was going to operate as a pastor, I needed to do that. I did that way before I became an engineer actually. I knew in my heart that I’m going to be more of a pastor than an engineer. I knew it while I was at the university doing my master’s program. And so, I think that helps us a lot.

Once you settle that like I mentioned earlier, the next thing is to ask yourself, “Okay, Where is this going to?” You have an idea, how far is this idea going? Is this going to go far enough? Am I ready to go all the way with this?

As a person, somehow [I don’t know how], I have a lot of ideas come to my mind. I share with you, sweetie that if this idea comes to my mind, it’s a great idea but I can’t run with it if it is a new career. You know I’ve said that a few times. I can’t run with it if it’s a new career. For example, I come to Nigeria and see it’s always hot, I could think that “Wow! A good ice cream company will do very well here.” But then, that’s a new career. I don’t have the time to sit down and run with that. So I say, “it’s a good idea but it’s not my idea.” I think about it for a while and then discard it because it’s not my idea. Why do I do that? I think of it, “What does it involve? How long? What stakes in the long run? How is it going to help? How am I going to be involved? What is it going to take?

So those are the questions that I ask… That’s the first one… I don’t know if you want to chip in on that or you have questions…

Olu: No, I think you are head-on, on this point because if one is not satisfied with who you are, you are not even going to be able to enjoy all the other things that God wants to do.

In my own life, I see the difference between the time when I was struggling to achieve – and I tell you, I was struggling to… You know me! I was struggling to achieve a lot. But I’m now doing it from the place of, “I don’t care if I’m not anything. I think I’m good. What I have in Christ, I’m fine. Anything else is an icing on the cake.”

And, I really like also, the way you brought the idea, dream, and vision, just to separate because sometimes, we waste time on ideas – things that are just supposed to fly in our head and go away. And people like me will do that a lot because you take those ideas, you sit around and you’re… the scarcity mentality. You want to make sure that it becomes something. And you waste time a lot on that – things that could have just been passed on to somebody else.

I remember the time that God helped me to see that these ideas – all these ideas that are coming to your head, it’s not for you. They are not for you. You can throw them to other people and move on but the call – the main thing is what I want you to focus on.

So, I really like that. I’d like you to please continue.

Ade: Okay, Great!

The next thing is to try to feel the feeling of where you’re going. I think that’s important – you need to feel it. Try to feel it. How will I feel when I get this done? What are the feelings I’m trying to capture?

So, for example, when I was still studying to be an engineer now, I knew that God was calling me to pastor and build a church and to really be involved in the work of ministry. I could feel it. I knew when I went into a meeting or when I’d share, what I’d love to experience; the experience of being submissive to God; the experience of being used by God-given words from God and seeing lives changed… I loved that feeling and I wanted that with all my heart. That’s what kept me going. So, you should try to feel the feeling.

So example, I read the story of a lawyer who became a restaurant owner. So I’m sure… what does that woman need to do? She needs to think about it, “If I have people coming to eat in my restaurant, how do I feel?” If you feel so good about it, then I think that’s what made her quit the thing and went to become a restaurant owner. So, the same… If God is leading you in a way, try to feel the feeling.

Then, the next step I have here is “How do you begin to do that?” I ask people the question, “Very good now. You say you want to do this. What are the steps that are involved? Imagine you are going to do it now and you have all the money to do it now, what will you do?” So, the person begins to tell me and I do that to myself too. Imagine you have a go ahead and God is saying, “Yes!” You hear from heaven, “yes this is what you should do…”, what are the steps involved? You now begin to imagine it; you play it out in your mind without any risk. You’re not spending any money. You’re just playing out in your head, and you play it out step by step. So, how are the people going to know about it? What are they going to say? What if they don’t want it? Why would they want? Ask those questions. So, you keep asking more and more questions.

And in order for this to be able to happen, you have to be emotionally detached from it. In other words, you’ve told yourself, “If it doesn’t fly, it’s good. I know it’s not God. If it doesn’t work out, it means it’s not God. So I’ll just leave it. But usually, it doesn’t go away. If it’s God, it will keep coming.

So, what do you need to do?

You just keep asking those questions. Ask those tough questions from yourself. Imagine if it’s not you – someone came with the idea to you, what would you say to them? So I say those things to myself and when I’m done with myself, and it’s still going – the idea is still strong, then I pass it on to other people. I begin to share with them, I have this idea, what do you think? And most times, by the time I’ve done that – maybe 70 out of 100 times, people would begin to give me good ideas. The lot would say, “That’s a good idea. That’s fantastic!” Now, it became a good idea because I have worked on it and I’ve changed a lot of things as I’ve asked myself some tough questions.

And I also ask another question. So, that’s 3 things that I’m adding.

The third thing I ask myself is “Who has done this before?” And then I study to see what they are experiencing – what they are doing? do I like it the way it is? is there a modification that I want to put in it? I ask all those questions to give me an idea of what it’d look like in the future; what are the hindrances in my life right now that may not let that happen. Am I ready to learn the skills and all that stuff?

Olu: Wow… This is very good.

It’s good that you are talking about dissociating yourself from it because you won’t feel bad when somebody is asking you tough questions. You know that… You are happy. Almost like you hire yourself to help somebody achieve their goals. You don’t see it as your “do or die” thing. And it comes back to that scarcity thing. I like what you said in the beginning. You said something about being at rest. When you are at rest, you are not struggling with that one idea. You know that you are already satisfied.

One of the reasons why I began to do this podcast is I discovered that many of us as Christians, I used to be like that… We have levels, okay. I used to be where I wasn’t satisfied with what I have. I mean, when you compare me with a lot of people, I’m way better back in the day. I even wrote a book called living from the inside out. And that was my level at the time where I was not ready to do it on the outside anymore. But, I discovered that many of us as Christians, we’re going around and we are still looking for more. We still want some more satisfaction outside Christ. If we can remind ourselves that we are already satisfied with Christ – if I’m not satisfied in Christ, each one of us will and our listeners too as they are going through the process of clarifying their vision, if this is still a challenge, there will be some hesitation; there will be some stress. And even the devil would come and begin to poke holes in some of the great ideas – things that God wants to do because he knows that you are still trying to be something. You’re still not satisfied with God.

So, this key to being satisfied with God – enjoying Him fully, it helps you achieve what God wants you to achieve and I really like that. I think that it’s something that we must address very well that if you’re going to be able to see the future… I discovered that even making mistakes in life has a big part to play in it, if not the foundation. If you’re not satisfied with God, what it is, is you’d be looking at today and you’d not want to worry about tomorrow. You’d say, “let me just enjoy this one now. If I enjoy this one now, tomorrow will deal with itself. Let’s just do this one now. It’s good to enjoy today and not worry about tomorrow but if you’re making a mistake or if you’re going in a direction where it’s not supposed to be or you are shortchanging yourself, it will affect tomorrow. It will affect tomorrow.

So, I really like this. I don’t know if you have other things that you want to add to this.

Ade: Yes, I just wanted to mention that when we talk about being at rest in God, I really want to emphasize the fact that it means just being happy that we are saved; we are the children of God, we hear from God and He’s got our backs. Just knowing that, I think is enough. We don’t need more than that. But because we are now in Him, He has the big plans and we can find out those plans.

And so, this “critically evaluating what we are doing”, is just making sure that it’s God’s plan, not just a good idea. It’s a God’s plan. God wants you to do that. And so, you already have this lingering desire. Something is coming up – It’s popping up and is not going away. So, you subject it to these barrage of questions and you bring it to others – your mentors. It’s important to have a mentor. It’s important to have someone in your life in different areas. You don’t have to have one mentor for everything but you can have a mentor for this particular area. Let them ask you all these difficult questions.

At the end, you come back and fine tune it if it keeps coming. Or sometimes, after they’ve asked you those questions, you go to sleep; you go to your prayer place and you hear nothing – it’s gone. That means it wasn’t really God speaking to you because it’s now gone… That’s how I do it. When I go back to the place of prayer… So after asking these questions, that’s not the end. I go back to the place of prayer and then check again in my spirit – how is it going? Many times if it’s God’s idea – if it’s something that God wants me to do, it comes up stronger. I feel still excited about it even though I’ve seen more difficulties. Sometimes, I didn’t notice some areas that’d be difficult but as I’m asking questions and I’m releasing to people, they show me areas. But then, when I’m in the place of prayer, I begin to get solutions to those problems. Then I know God is still working with me.

Olu: Amen. Amen. Amen.

And I also think that your spouse is the first person, I mean if you are married. And, I know that a lot of people struggle in the marriage with this because depending on your background and your spouse’s background, you may be thinking, “Oh… this person is just a pain…” But really, they are not a pain. God is going to use them. Then your siblings – maybe sometimes;  your parents – sometimes; your pastors, your…. In overcomers, we have life group leaders – your life group leaders. You are not scared that they are going to destroy the idea. You’re satisfied with God, remember! And even if this idea never flies, you’re okay. But the thing is if this is God, God will make sure that it happens because it’s important to Him that that thing comes to life. It’s just sometimes the fine tuning; sometimes it’s to cut it off completely; sometimes, it’s to fine tune it so that it will last a long time.

So, as we wrap it up, sweetie, why don’t you say a word of prayer?

Ade: Before I pray, I wanted to just say that what you said is very important. The people who this idea will impact the most, need to hear about this early enough.

Olu: That’s true! That’s true.

Ade: So that’s why your spouse, very important and your children or your brother or your roommate… whoever… The significant people in your life at that time must hear about it. After you’ve done your first level of fine tuning, then you talk to them and then you move on – just in stages and you’ll still go back to God.

Olu: And we’ll still talk about this in the future.

Ade: So yes, Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for this time. Thank you for all the people that are listening and really want to fulfill your purpose for their lives. I pray oh God that your Grace will continue to abound upon each one of us as we pursue you and enjoy our relationship with you. We ask oh God for clarity for each one of us. We ask oh God, for grace to really look at whatever it is that you are asking us to do and bring up those tough questions and not be afraid to ask them. And not also be afraid to try to solve the problems that may pop up in our minds as you speak to us and prepare us for the future.

Lord, thank you to everyone that may be going through a difficult time this day, we ask together for victory for them. We ask oh God for breakthroughs, healings and for help in every area. Thank you, Father. In Jesus name, we pray, Amen.

Both: Amen!

Olu: Alright, thank you, everybody. It’s always good to share with you. There’s something new that I want to add to this and that’s – You can send us your questions. You can send it by recording, send it by writing it; send it by email. The email to use is olu@olusobanjo.com. And you can also send it through WhatsApp if you have my WhatsApp number and you can also email it or just leave it as a comment on the website. Anyway, the way we are going to do it is questions that you have, we’d look through them. You can even do them by audio – you can record the audio and we’d add it to the podcast. We’d decide which ones we are going to use. But, send them to us and we’d be glad to use your questions.

Alright! So, thank you very much. We are glad to be with you today. Have a great week! Bye Bye.

Biggest Takeaways You Don’t Want to Miss:

1. Limiting thoughts like self doubts will always come, you only need to learn how to deal with it
2. To deal with self-doubt you need to bring every thoughts back to God
3. God made you unique and someone out there is waiting to be blessed by what you have to offer.
4. When self-doubts come it may be an opportunity to re-evaluate or an opportunity to improve your ideas.

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Ep. 40 Transcripts: How to deal with self-doubt

[Intro ]

Olu: Hello and Welcome to Like Jesus Podcast. This is Olu Sobanjo. I’m very glad to have you with me on the show today. I’m going to be doing this alone today but it’s going to be a wonderful time.

For the last couple weeks, we’ve been discussing the ideas on fear and a lot of people have sent in all sorts of questions in regards to different fears that are coming up. And many of my listeners from all over the world in Europe, America, Canada, Nigeria, are finding it hard to deal with some of the fears that have been limiting them. I have answered a few of questions one on one to the people but then, I want to bring it together and answer them on air. Maybe there’s somebody out there that is battling with the same thing that some of the people that sent in their questions are dealing with. That’s why I decided to do this.

And I must say this here that if you want us to feature your questions – should in case you have a question you want us to answer on the show, you should send them over to me by either typing them or recording them as an audio. If it’s clear and understandable enough, we can even feature it on the podcast so you can hear your own voice! Leave a message via WhatsApp, or e-mail. If you are going to record, I’d suggest that you use your headset. If you have an iPhone or any other phone, you have a headset that comes with your phone, you can use that. It helps the recording to be clearer. Also, try to be in a place where it’s not noisy – possibly in a closed room [not too small a room so you don’t have too much echo]. Just try to limit the background noise so we can hear you clearly.

Today, I want to answer questions around, How to deal with self-doubt.

Many of the people that have been sending messages, sent different questions in the same way – those questions revolve around self-doubt. And I must say that this is very particular to everybody including myself. Because you see, the last 10 months that I’ve been working on producing episodes after episodes for Like Jesus Podcast have been fun! It’s been great! But it’s been hectic as well. You know, I’ve had lots of dry moments and times of self-doubt myself. I’m telling you, there have been plenty times where I’ve doubted what I’m doing and asked myself, “how is it helping anyway?” I must tell you that. That’s why I’ve decided to share with you on this episode because this is a crucial topic. When God begins to tell you things to do, your doubts will come in. It’s not necessarily because you like to doubt yourself but because if it’s God’s plan, the enemy doesn’t want it to work so he’ll bring all sorts of doubts to discourage you.

So, many of my listeners have been asking lots of questions centered around self-doubt based on what we’ve been discussing. One listener asked: How do I go forward with an idea when I know I’m not yet a pro at it?So I have this idea, I know I’m not I’m not a professional or the best at it. I’m worse off than many people on this same topic, how do I go ahead with it knowing all these? Another person said, What if what I’m feeling now is just me talking to myself? What if I’m just over spiritualizing everything, saying it as if it’s God that’s actually talking to me? What if it’s me, myself and I that are just talking? Another person said, What if I make mistakes and ruin the plans? All sorts of self-doubt are there and these questions – second guessing, all fall under self-doubt.

I must say that I was really glad to hear all these limiting thoughts that my listeners are having. Why? Because these thoughts may just be a sign that you are on track. So, you don’t need to panic and if you are off track, that’s okay too. The fact that you have self-doubt doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the world. It may just be an opportunity to reevaluate. So on this episode today, I want to help you know how to deal with self-doubt and get over it at least for this moment. Because, trust me, they are going to come back. That’s pretty much how it works. Self-doubt will always come back. So listen, if you are out there and you think you have an idea of what you want to do but you are being limited by different speed limiters, know it for sure that you are not alone. You’re not the first person… You now know that many other people feel that way.

In short, a recent example for me is when I launched an e-book. Many of you will know my personal quiet time guide that I just launched. It took me a weekend to come up with that book, create it and finish it. By Monday morning when I was hitting the send button so it can go out to all my subscribers on my website. As soon as I sent it, I began to have all sorts of self-doubt thoughts like, “Nobody likes it or needs it. In short, you just wasted your whole weekend doing this. Nobody needs it! It’s the same thing out there for everyone. So it doesn’t really matter because what you’re saying is not different from what everybody is saying. And I just began to have all these thoughts. For the first 15 minutes, after I sent the e-book to people on my list and I put it on autopilot on my website so that people can download it, I just started getting all these self-doubt thoughts. My husband wasn’t around at that time so I sent a message and I said, “Guess what? I’ve sent out the e-mail [he’s on the list too so he’s going to also get it.] But, You know what? I’m feeling really discouraged. I don’t feel like it’s going to help anybody. I feel like it’s useless, it’s not going to be useful to anyone and I just wasted my time producing it.” And then he said, “I don’t think so. Hold on a sec, let me go read it.” So, he went because he wasn’t around for me to go back and forth for him to look at it. When he read it, he replied and said, “You’re just allowing the enemy to discourage you. This material is actually very good and it’s going to help people that read it. It’s going to really help them.” For the first time after I sent that, I realized that I had actually allowed the enemy to be speaking in my ears, discouraging me.

So you see! It’s not just you that goes through this problem but when this happens, the question that you are going to ask yourself is, “What do I do when self-doubt comes?” By the end of the day, I had so many people that had sent me messages, thanking me for the book. They said, “Wow. Thank you for the book. Now, I would understand how to pray better; Now, I know what to do with my quiet time and how to get the most out of it…” Including pastors all over the world, telling me “This is really good. Thank you!” And I said to myself, “Why did I allow myself to be discouraged for that moment?” And that’s the way it works. The enemy wants to discourage you.

So, in order to deal with self-doubt, the first thing is that you have to bring that idea back to God in prayers. Everything that I say comes back to the presence of God, right? But that’s the truth for everything that we do. If we’re going to be the ones that are going to impact the world – to be the salt and the light of the world that Jesus said we are, we have to go back to Him every single moment to get his opinion. You’ve already started getting the idea of what you want to do then the self-doubt starts to come. You bring it back to God and say, “Lord, I surrender this plan to you. I don’t care if I don’t even achieve it. I’m already in you so I surrender myself to you. I want you to take over my life and take over this idea.” When you do that, what you are doing is you want to take on the wisdom of God and the boldness that comes from hearing God talk to you. And when you take that, you back to fight, to pursue and work! When you are going back to work, you’re not going back with your own wisdom or strength. You’re going with the strength of God. That’s why it’s very important that you get the boldness from God.

An example that came to mind this week is the story of David and Goliath. You’d look at David and you’ll think “you are going to fight a giant. If you look at yourself compared to that giant, you actually look like a grasshopper.” And the giant, Goliath didn’t keep quiet. Rather, he kept saying all sorts of things, “They sent you to come and fight me? These people are stupid. I’m going to serve your head to…” He kept saying all sorts of things. If David had gone with his own strength or with his own wisdom; if he had gone with the wisdom and armor of King Saul, he’d have been served as fish, as a meal to the birds of the air. Because he’d have been going in the wrong strength. But because he went back to God in prayer and he knows the relationship that they had, he said, “I was with my Father’s flock and a lion came, a bear came and I destroyed them.” He remembered the strength that helped him – who helped him to fight a lion and then he went with that strength to attack Goliath. So as you are getting self-doubt, if you try to polish it and you say, Oh… No No No. I’ll be fine. I’ll do well…” It’s going to stress you and you’re still going to not achieve that thing. You may achieve it a little bit but eventually, you will not get there. But, when you go with the strength of God and the grace that God can give you, you’re no longer going in your strength, rather, you are going in His strength.

The next thing you need to do is that you need to share this idea. Don’t just keep it in your head. Share it with other people and critically analyze what your idea is. This point would be discussed in the next episode, Episode 41. We, myself and Pastor Ade, are going to be dealing with this. He’s going to tell you to step by step what you need to do so you can learn how to critically analyze your ideas personally and when you’re bringing it to other people to help you analyze it. That’s what we are going to be dealing with in the next episode. Because it’s very good to get feedback. You need to get feedback. Like I was saying about my e-book there, by the way, I’m still giving out that book on my website. If you get feedback from people, it helps you know if what you are doing is the right way to go or not. Like for me, when I got feedback from my listeners, it was good for me to know that the devil is just discouraging you. Don’t worry! What you’re doing is helping other people. Even if it’s just one person. Even as a mum at home, sometimes, you are doing all these things and the enemy might come to discourage you saying, “Why are you doing all these?” But then you let God remind you that you are doing it for the children and your husband. You can be in a church where you are doing this project and it looks like nobody see what you are doing… Self-doubt can come in many ways. Believe in the feedback that you get from other people as they are telling you. Don’t feel as though they are just saying it to make you feel good. It’s just the enemy again, making you doubt yourself.

The next important thing to do about self-doubt is to remember that you are unique. You are very unique. God made each one of us unique and He made us in such a way that even though you may have a twin, you’d not think the same way as your twin neither do you do the same thing as your twin. If you don’t have a twin, it’s even easier for you to know that you are unique! Even if there’s someone that looks like you, there is a completely different mindset. So you don’t need to worry about whether or not you are original because you definitely are original.

I was thinking about it this other way. We all read the same Bible but when we read it, we all get different things from it. When we are doing family devotion at home and each person is sharing, it’s beautiful because even though it’s the same scripture that we have, everyone has a different perspective on it. Let’s look at it this way again. In Nigeria, there’s this thing that we do which is called the “Zobo Drink”. The Zobo drink is a juice that you make from hibiscus flower. They take that flower and dry it. They dry it so much that it becomes purple dry leaves. Then, they take the hibiscus flower and boil it in plain water. From the hibiscus flower, the juice comes out – coloring the colorless water purple. It becomes the drink. Then you can add whatever you want to add – sugar, honey, jolly juice, ginger or pineapple [to make it have a natural flavor]. Even though all you are doing is just adding the same common raw materials that everyone else uses for different things, the juice of the flowers comes out and it tastes different. If you add ginger to the same water, it doesn’t taste like Zobo. One thing that you have to realize is just as unique as Zobo is, the same way you are unique. You take the Word of God, it comes to you, washes off and it becomes a part of you. When it comes out, it becomes something else. We take the same scripture, I explain it differently and you explain it differently. It addresses my situation differently and then I share it that way. It addresses another person’s situation differently and we share it that way. Each one is unique on their own.

So, don’t ever feel like what God is doing in your life is too insignificant. You’d be saying, “God is not smart enough.” When God created you, He created you uniquely and looked at what He had made and said, it was good. Including you. Don’t forget that. I want you to not forget that. You need to remember that God is the one that has made you. Your flavor is something and there’s someone out there that is waiting to be blessed by what you have to offer. I’d say that again. Someone out there is waiting to be blessed by what you have to offer. Take the boldness that you are receiving from God’s presence and start stepping out today, as soon as possible.

That’s why I’ll be opening the veil over my very first online course shortly. I already put the link on my website. Just go to olusobanjo.com,  you’d be able to sign up. The online course is called Ready, Set, Impact. I believe there are many of us out there that God is already putting some things in your heart. You’re getting ready, getting set and it’s time to start impacting. If you’re looking to start 2018 with clarity, you want to be on that course. Go over there to olusobanjo.com and sign up for the course. If you have a ministry idea, an idea of a service you can start to render, a book on your mind that you want to write, songs, a blog, or other things that you want to do, you must run over there and go sign up for Ready Set Impact Course. It’s free. You’d get emails, different tools, videos, transcripts and other tools/tips that’d help you get ready and start. That’s why I think everyone on the planet should sign up for it. If you know anybody that has been dragging their feet – they are scared. Just tell them to go over to olusobanjo.com and sign up for the online course. And let’s get started. I know that the tips and free stuff you are going to get from that course will help you to confidently start to pursue God’s purpose for you in no time. Once again, go over and sign up on olusobanjo.com.

In conclusion, if you are ever faced with self-doubt, remember that it’s a normal part of life. It may be an indication to reevaluate or an opportunity to improve your ideas.

Alright! So, let’s pray.

Father in the name of Jesus, we thank you because you take time to reveal yourself and your plans to us. Lord, I’m trusting you that everyone that is listening to this, especially those that are having limiting thoughts or struggling with self-doubt, I ask, oh God that you help them to move past this. That in your presence, they’d find the boldness to pursue what your plan is for their lives. In the name of Jesus. Whether it’s in the little things of today – what do I do or not do or whether it’s in the major steps of finding and pursuing purpose, Lord, I pray that you help them to embrace your boldness and the grace to take this and allow you to work on them and the plan, to become what you have in mind. In the name of Jesus.

I pray Oh God that anyone that the enemy is taking time to limit, we silence the enemy and we declare that my brothers and sisters are secured in you and your plans for their lives are secured, in the name of Jesus. You said in your word that you have a plan for us, one of good and not of evil, to make us have an expected end. So, Lord Jesus, I pray that each of one of my listeners will have an expected end, in the name of Jesus. Anyone that is working on a project right now and is trying to understand how and where to go, Lord clarify things for them, in the name of Jesus. And let this be a wonderful week for everyone, in the name of Jesus mighty name we’ve prayed. Amen!

Alright, People! It’s always good to talk with you. Don’t forget, if you have questions you want us to feature, go over to olusobanjo.com and leave a comment on this post. Or you can send them by WhatsApp or email attachment to olu@olusobanjo.com. So, send them in and we’ll take time to answer your questions.

Alright. God bless you. Thank you. Until next week, have a wonderful time listening to God. Bye for now.

Biggest Takeaways You Don’t Want to Miss:

1. In order to overcome fear, you must take time to write down what you think you are hearing from God
2. It’s important to be sure that its God talking not you so take time to clarify the vision, think more about it
3. God’s plan is usually very huge, but we must ask Him how to start small, stay steady and finish strong
4. Your personal time with God is key.

“I’m gonna make the rest of my life be the best of my life”   – Anonymous

Remember the ebook  Effective Quiet Time Guide is still available. Get yours now:

Listen on iTunes or Google Play

Ep. 39 Transcripts: How to overcome the fear of failure Part 2

[Intro Music]

Olu: You’re welcome to Like Jesus Podcast. This is Olu Sobanjo and I have my husband, Ade Sobanjo with me today. Thankfully, he’s back!

Ade: Hello!

Olu: It’s good to have you. 

Last week we started on the topic of fear and how to overcome fear in starting out what God is putting in your heart to do. We mentioned different fears that we had. But while we were talking, sweetie, you mentioned that maybe it’d be nice for us to look at “What were  the fears I had following you?” Cos you’re the visioner and I actually took some time to think about it. I can’t remember any major fear I had before we started. I remember that it wasn’t new to me especially because I had known you for a while before then and you had been saying this or something similar to it at the time. Maybe it wasn’t as in-depth as it was at the beginning but it became clearer and clearer so the fears were not real. I was more optimistic about the whole thing and knowing you – knowing that this must be God… You know, I see the way you walk with God and I know that it’s not just coming from nowhere. So, it was a lot easier and I’m not the number one person so what could go wrong for me at least? I didn’t see it like that. But it was not until we started the work that I started to develop different questions and fears. And I’m definitely going to be talking about that in another episode.

Today, I’ll like us to focus more on this aspect of overcoming the fear that may be limiting you to start. Last week, we identified some of the fears you had and some that I had. One of them was the fear of not hearing right – Am I sure this is God? The next one is the fear of doing it wrong – I know I have heard but then, am I going to do it right, the way it’s supposed to be? I talked about the fear of failing in public, fear of people discouraging you, and I know that there are so many other fears out there that people may be feeling. One of them may even be the fear of losing control, losing your comfort, or losing those things that you are attached to if, for example, God is calling you to begin to do things that will pull you away from your comfort zone.

And so, I’d like to ask you a little further. I want us to delve into this and help this fellow that is very busy with activities or busy in their mind and wondering, how do I overcome this fear of starting out when I’m not even sure?

Ade: Yes. Thank you so much for taking the time to remind us of those things. There’s one other fear that I had then which I mentioned – the fear of knowing the right time. I think that’s what really stops a lot of people from starting even when they know and have clarified that it is God that is speaking to them about something He wants them to do.

Let me just start by saying that the most important part of this is being sure that this is God. I know that once I know it’s God, I’ve overcome a lot of things. Which is, I know that it will be well; it will end well when I have the idea that this is God speaking to me. I think that’s the same thing that you are saying about how it was for you when we were going to start the church. You had this confidence that it’d be okay because you knew it was God speaking to us. Let’s talk about this fact: if I know that God is saying something to me, how do I go forward with it? How do I overcome that fear of moving ahead? We’ve talked about clarifying that it is indeed God and this is done in the place of prayer. Now, I’d like us to talk about taking the first steps. When we started, we didn’t start by closing our business, you quitting your job and then we going in full-time. No! We started small and I always say that – start small, stay steady and finish strong. That’s how God has helped me and I think if anyone wants to do anything, you should think of starting small. Before we even think of starting, let’s talk about clarifying.

For clarifying, I’d say the first step is to write down what you think you are hearing. Don’t think about how it is going to be done, who is going to help you or whether people are going to like it or not. Just write down what you think you are hearing. For instance, if I’m a doctor and I’m beginning to hear God say to me, I want you to be a musician, I want you to spend more time doing gospel music… And, I know that I have the gift of music, then I’m going to write down – What am I thinking of doing now? What’s going to happen? I’m going to record an album, start a record label… I’m just going to write down what I’m thinking I’m hearing. It’s from there that I can now move forward.

Olu: So, from what you’re saying, I’m hearing, Take time to write down but what if I don’t have the time? You don’t know how tight things are. How do I even get there? Because, a lot of times, what people may be going through may be in the aspect of being so clouded in their minds that they are not able to find that time. Is there a way that you can recommend to help somebody find that time?

Ade: Well, that’s a good thing you are saying. I don’t believe that people don’t have time. I believe that we usually make time for what we need to do. If a person tells me that I don’t have any time to sit down and write down what I feel God is really saying to me, then I’d have to ask them really, what are you spending all that time to do? Because, if the owner of you is trying to get your attention, and you don’t have time, it’s similar to your boss trying to call you for a meeting to talk about the reason why you are employed and you tell the boss, “you know what? I don’t have any time to meet with you.” You’re going to be out of a job so quickly. That’s how I see it. If I say I don’t have time to sit down and hear God, then it means that I want to crash that life.

So, what will you do? Take one day or weekend off, talk to your husband, beg and say, “You know what? I’m going to do the next week or 3 weeks if I have to, but can you just take the children for 5 hours? I need to get something straight…” Just do that. What I’m saying right now is that it really doesn’t take much time. You can even write it on your lunch break. What are the thoughts that are coming to your mind? Just write them down and then they’ll begin to flow. I think once you start writing, there is a flow – you’ll see yourself writing some more thoughts that never came to your mind before when you were still busy – not engaging that thought.

Olu: Very good! Very good! So, this person has the time now and they’ve scheduled. Perhaps, they found a few minutes to squeeze this in and they’ve actually engaged the thought… I like the way you said the owner of your life – the one that sent you here is asking and demanding to explain some things to you and you are busy. It just reminds me of one time that God spoke to me using the colt that Jesus rode in Jerusalem. He said just the same way that colt was tied down, I want you to be reserved, I want you to reserve space in your life for me, just in case I need to use a colt – just in case I need one hour of your time, reserve that time. So, I think it’s just very important that we are able to find time for God.

There’s this other fear which is, “I know what I have right now. I’m familiar with what I have going on – this is comfortable for me. Then God begins to call you to go into some else that is unknown – completely unknown. And you are writing it down but it’s still unknown. What do you say to such a person that is comfortable with where they are right now – it may or may not be great but it’s a known. So, what about the unknown? How do you scale through to begin to believe the unknown more than shoving it under the bed?

Ade: God usually calls us and directs us to something that we are not used to. What we are not used to is not usually unknown 100% because if God is calling you to it, there is something that you have, already deposited in you by Him, that’d make that happen. Somehow, your life is designed for whatever God is calling you to. Unknown is usually in the sense that you don’t know what will happen once you start doing that; you don’t know how your life will be impacted once you go out and begin; you don’t know what it’s going to lead to. And so we are afraid to leave the comfort to begin something that we don’t know where it is going to end.

For that, what I’ll encourage someone to do is just start thinking about it for now. The first step is never doing. It’s thinking, imagining it and letting it go through your mind. Ruminate over it and pray on it. That’s what I do. I take time to pray over it. I think of it and imagine myself in it and think of how far it will go. You know, just dream about it. It is while you are doing that, you’d develop the strength to either go forward or go back.

Sometimes, I’ve had to think about things and while it grows bigger in my mind, trying to see where it’d lead, I discover that the whole thing dies down because it was just a desire, not a leading – not a direction. But there are some things that when you let it stay long in your mind, you discover that it is actually a leading. For example, you say you are feeling called to enter into ministry. You’d have to think about who you are ministering to. Say it’s ministry to children, think of designing a program for children. Then you think about what you want to do and how you are going to design it… All of that is in the brain. You’re not committed to anything neither have you spent anything. The only thing you’ve done is thinking and that’s very important. It is after that is settled in your mind that you can then move forward. Once you get that, the next thing is something I said earlier – think of how you can start small.

Olu: Thank you very much. As you were talking, I really like the statement where you said, when you begin to think about it and you are clarifying, the boldness to start will come. The thing that looks like it’s an unknown right now will become so real to you and you begin to do it. That brings us back to the point of clarifying the vision and making sure you hear what God is saying and as you are writing it down, you’re bringing it back to God.

Do you want to talk to us a little bit more about that? It’s taking more time to think about it now and it’s writing some things down, how do I clarify with God? Do you want to talk a little more about that? How do I perfect what I’m thinking about? Because some of the ideas that I have are mine – just me dreaming big and some are what God wants me to do right now. How do I clarify with God which one to do and which one not to do?

Ade: Usually when God begins to speak to us, it’s way bigger than we can imagine. I find that when God begins to speak to me about something that He wants to do, they are humongous – scary in the sense that when you think of the size of what they are, you may panic. That’s why I said write down first. When you write down, you think about it.

The clarity comes with time. I can’t overemphasize that. I don’t think it is wise for you to have an idea today and then you are implementing next week. I think it’s best to give it one month or a couple of weeks. Once you’ve done that, the next step is sharing with your significant other – your spouse, your children if you have them, your mentors, your leaders… There’s a process if it’s something that God is asking you to do because usually, it’s big.

Now, there are some things that God will ask you to do which are just like simple instructions like “Talk to that person. Visit that person. Develop a new hobby. Become  more healthy in your living…” That’s not what I’m talking about. Those are things you just do. You just take actions. These are things you can’t lose. You gain from them as these are things you ought to be doing anyway. I’m talking about God asking you to change a career, add a new career… Sometimes it’s an addition. You don’t have to end what you are doing. There’s a way that God has planned to join them together. That’s why I’m saying once you have clarified, it won’t be much of an issue.

You were asking how to clarify which is God’s plan for you exactly. I think writing down and praying through is the way to go. The things will change as you go ahead. A lot of things will change when you are in it. But you want to get yourself motivated to start it. I begin to think about the difficulties that are ahead, what are the challenges that I’m going to face… I think about these things and don’t shy away from them because if you shy away from them, you will meet them and then you won’t know how to handle them. If I keep thinking up all the problems, and the challenges and I keep having ideas on how to solve them, then I keep going. But sometimes, you think of all the challenges that are there and you discover that I didn’t think this through… this isn’t the way to do that. Now that doesn’t mean you should shut down on the project. No! It means you should figure out how to solve this problem and keep going. That is how you’re not going to stop after 2 weeks when you are ready to take off.

Olu: Very true!

As you are saying this, I’m just remembering some things that I’ve been venturing into recently. This is the sewing world. Recently, I got a sewing machine and I just enjoy it. It’s like a hobby – just making dresses, making things that members of my family would wear and it gives me so much joy looking at that. I want to do more of it but I can’t. I was beginning to think, “What next do I do? Do I hire someone?” I had that fear at the beginning and even up till now, I’m not exactly sure where this is going.

When I started making the first few things that we were wearing, people started asking me, Oh! I want one too. And it’s like people began to demand more of that thing but I’m not even sure I want to do it… I’m just seeing it as my hobby but now I’m beginning to see it as it can actually be a clothing line or something like that. And I’m doing a lot of study and prayer but still, I’m taking it one step at a time.

It’s good to know that you just do as much as you can but make sure you clarify. That’s one thing that is keeping me right now – clarifying and getting an idea of how is this going to fit into all that I have going on? How is this not going to take away from the most important things in my life? What exactly am I getting at? Where am I going with this? So, I’m still trying to understand all of that with the very little time that I have left to think about something else. Even though right now, I have somebody that comes into the house and works with me on this, but it’s taking so much time but I see it as an investment because I’m trying to see what it takes to even consider going in this direction. It’s costing me some money so it might cost some money as well.

I think that this has been a very good discussion today and I really like the way things are going. I don’t know if you have some other extra things that you want to add to our listeners that are saying, I think I want to trust God and go for it. By go for it, I don’t mean taking steps yet but maybe there are some people that are taking steps and they are ready to push on or some are still at the place that they are saying – I just want to clarify some more. I don’t know if you have some other final things that you want to add.

Ade: Yes. I want to also say that we don’t need to put all that hocus-pocus around God speaking to us. Sometimes, some people are so scared to say God spoke to me and I heard a loud voice. It’s not about that. It’s just that desire – He just begins to give you an idea. He drops a thought. You need to know how God speaks to you. When God speaks to you, and you have this idea, you just begin to develop it. Just like you said, Olu, that you got a machine and started sewing. That’s not going to be a disaster if someone spends some money to buy a machine to try out a hobby. That’s why I said, once God begins to put something in your heart, don’t make too big a deal of it. However, if it’s a very big deal – for something very big after you’ve thought about that, come back again and say, how do I start small so that I can step out, taking one step at a time and build from there.

Just like you were sharing, I also had this desire in April 2016. It was that “You know what? I’ve heard people say they’ve made money online through Amazon so I said I’m going to do a small website and see how it’s going to go. Now, that website is making some little change, little money but it’s money. And it’s just a hobby so we can do those things and they have a way of impacting our lives.

So, if you are there and you have this idea to do something for God or do something that you’ve sensed it’s been there, why don’t you think of starting small? But that’s after you’ve talked with people around you. It’s always good to talk with the people around you. They can show you a few things that you may not see and then trust God to lead you and to guide you. There’s nothing wrong with you going a few weeks or months down the line and realize, “Oh, it’s just going to be a hobby… it’s never going to be big. It’d just be a one-time investment.” That’s alright but you don’t want to do a lot of that for your life and not really do one thing big that God may have been impressing in your heart to do. That’s what I just want to add.

Olu: Thank you very much. And people, it’s been nice just sharing with you again this week. I just want to wrap it up with the idea that your personal time with God is key.

Your personal quiet time which we talked about some weeks ago – spending time with God and actually hearing Him. Back to the point where Pastor Ade was saying, the more you spend time with God, the stronger that thing is in your mind. The stronger it becomes and the bolder you become then you begin to take steps. No matter what people think or what’s happening, you just keep going.

I was looking at the book of Joshua the other day, that common Joshua 1:8. I realized that this guy Joshua had been with Moses for so long. He was ready but God still had to go get Him and say, “Don’t fear. Don’t worry. Just stay with me and let this book of the Law not depart from your mouth. Rather, meditate on it day and night.” Spend time with God and that’s where you’d get that boldness from. Don’t worry. Just keep going.

I’m still giving away to anyone that subscribes to the e-mail, ‘My Personal Quiet Time Guide’. It’s still available. If you have not signed up, it’s a mini book that tells you some of the things that I do when I pray and this isn’t some things I just came up with all by myself. I got them from books and other people. So it’s going to definitely help you. There are some questions that I ask myself every day as I journal. Questions like: What did I learn yesterday that I won’t want to forget? How did I follow or lead people? You want to, you know, ask yourself questions. These are tools that will help you engage the thought of what God is saying to you. When I look back at many of the things that I write, I see that I can even use them for other projects later. It can become a devotional, a book, a training guide… you know, just me journaling what God is saying to me on a daily basis. I know you do that too, sweetie so I know a lot of people do that.

So, if you want that book, just go to the website, olusobanjo.com and enter your e-mail address and you will get an email to confirm. You check your junk email most likely, it will be there if it’s not in the inbox and then you confirm that. Then you get the book.

To close it today, I’m going to ask you to please pray for us.

Ade: Father, we thank you so much for this time that we’ve had discussing obeying you and yielding to your leading – your promptings in our lives.

Lord, I pray for everyone who is listening to this that you’d grant them the grace to take the time to stop and listen to you. And as they are listening, they’ll have the grace also to write down and flesh out why you are speaking to them; to dream, to imagine and to allow you to show them the picture of what you want to do. And furthermore, give them the grace to take that first step to begin that new thing you are laying in their hearts to do; to bless somebody. Father, we desire that your name alone will be glorified in all that we do.

I pray for strength for everyone that is going through a difficult time right now. I pray for breakthroughs and victories for those who are going through really challenging situations. Thank you, Father! In Jesus name.

Olu: Amen. Alright! Until next week, continue to enjoy God’s presence.

Bye for now.

Ade: Bye!